Growing coffee

[TC]

Re: Growing coffee

These guys appeared overnight! They have quite a few friends!

[Barry_Duncan]

Re: Growing coffee

Youd need more than bare feet - maybe soccer boots

I tried to pulp a small amount of cherries by hand without any equipment. Very  time consuming and the result was not good. Maybe it was robusta.

It put me off home growing. I much prefer to pay someone else to do the hard work.

Barry

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

I tried to pulp a small amount of cherries by hand without any equipment. Very  time consuming and the result was not good. Maybe it was robusta.

It put me off home growing. I much prefer to pay someone else to do the hard work.

Barry

yeah, hand pulping sucks - but i havent seen an alternative yet. if a meat mincer can hull the beans it may be able to pulp them too. im going to give it a go next harvest.

a friend of mine in Los Angeles told me this week she has had a coffee tree for 5 years and so far has harvested only a single cherry! i think everyone on this thread is way ahead of that. LA is no place for a coffee tree - poor little sucker, choking to death.

[squiggles_59]

Re: Growing coffee

Hi all. I am keen to plant some coffee to grow a hedge about 6m long. Hoping that someone can direct me to a source of seedlings or cuttings. My local nursery have not managed to help.
I am in Newcastle.

[Divey]

Re: Growing coffee

Hi all. I am keen to plant some coffee to grow a hedge about 6m long. Hoping that someone can direct me to a source of seedlings or cuttings. My local nursery have not managed to help.
I am in Newcastle.

http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/coffee.htm

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

I am keen to plant some coffee to grow a hedge about 6m long. Hoping that someone can direct me to a source of seedlings or cuttings. My local nursery have not managed to help.
I am in Newcastle.

hi squiggs. i live in newcastle and got my trees some years ago from sharpes nursery merewether. scott sharpe told me a while ago they had some. they do grow energetically through winter. even my little seedlings are still putting out shoots. it sounds counter intuitive to plant seedlings in autumn but they should be ok. anyway, the nursery will know - hopefully.

[squiggles_59]

Re: Growing coffee

I ordered six coffee plants from daleysfruit and received them four days later. They came wonderfully well packaged and are 600mm tall. Planted them today and now have an anxious couple of years wait for my first harvest.

[squiggles_59]

Re: Growing coffee

it sounds counter intuitive to plant seedlings in autumn but they should be ok. anyway, the nursery will know - hopefully.

Tony, I am no expert gardener but I did learn from my old man many years ago that fruit trees are best planted mid autumn to early winter. No idea what the professionals have to say but my dad had about 60 years practical experience so that must count for something. I would add that as far as I know he never grew coffee.

[GrahamK]

Has anyone manage to make an effective "homemade" pulper as yet?

I am considering sourcing a hand pulper from India, but they are not that cheap when you only have a couple of trees. However its starting to get a bit tedious doing it "handraulically" and there are more trees on their way. I have had a surprisingly successful crop from Tree to Cup this Winter. (I was not expecting too much being only the 2nd crop, and last year did not get enough for a single roast). I have considered importing a hand pulper and "renting" it out to help defray the costs, would there be any interest for this in the Brisbane area?

GrahamK

[backyardbean]

Graham I used a Kambrook food processor with the plastic pough mixing blade this year and it worked a treat. It even took most of the mucilage off. I also used it to take the parchment off but that did flatten the tip of the outter blade.
How much $ did it work out getting one landed here from india? Ive contemplated getting one from India but haven't gone any further with it but within a couple of years i'll be pulping 20 bushes worth so the food prcessor wont cut it for that.
Did you try getting a price of a hand pulper from C.A.P.E australia.

[GrahamK]

C.A.P.E Australia do not have a hand Pulper, only a Huller, which is about $275 I think, but no good for Pulping. I queried it with them and there answer was "We wish". I also asked if the Huller would work, and the answer was No, one is for wet processing the other dry. The Pulper from India is about US$675 landed, including freighting to Brisbane and insurance. Not sure if there will be any import taxes on top of that or not.

I got all the doco for the Indian one, it seems pretty good and solid, with a stainless steel drum. I'm tempted, but it will not actually be cost effective at this stage for me, hence my enquiry about anyone else who may be interested.

Ideally it would be good for someone to come up with something that can be used for both pulping and Hulling, maybe with a switchable drum or something innovative. Unfortunately I do not have the means or skills to try that. I have seen a (historical) picture of a homemade one with a wooden drum with bent nails used somewhere in Africa.

GrahamK

[backyardbean]

If I was within an hours drive I'd definately be interested in a hire option but I'm down at Grafton nsw.

[elbeano]

Hey GrahamK, a trip up Mt Tamborine might be in order for you.My neighbour has about 25 trees, and I introduced him to a bloke who has been known to grow a bit of cherry.Problem solved.

[Melbroaster]

Thats awesome

[KittyJones]

My coffee tree growing experience

I've been learning well through 'deep end therapy' heheh...with a lot of research thrown in.

I've currently got 36 trees in the ground in Tamborine ranging from 6 months - 4.5 years old. I just keep planting from the beans my current trees produce. I've read that germination can be difficult, though I've found that if I plant ten beans, nine will germinate. I have nine at the moment that have just sprouted their first set of leaves and are no bigger than my pinkie! Cute!

I also just sowed another 15 beans so I'll see in a month or so how many of those will pop up. I'd read that it can take between 3 - 6 months for them to grow their taproot and pop up out of the soil. Mine tend to pop up within 1 - 2 months so it seems to be even more variable than I have read.

I've had a few plants die through incorrect planting (too deep rather than in a mound), then we had a few months of rain and the roots sat in water and the trees died. I had one seedling die because the bean skin pinched the stalk and nutrient couldn't reach the baby leaves. Other than that, it's been pretty good.

I dig the holes myself to nearly a metre deep and wide, then fill with a mixture of the same soil and mushroom compost, and also worm soil. I plant the babies in the mounds when they have five or six sets of leaves. I water them well a couple of times a week (less in winter and more in summer) and monitor to make sure they are draining well.

I fertilise with compost from my kitchen scraps (decomposed in a tumbleweed) and worm tea / soil from the worm farm. I've got ag pipe dug in to the mounds so that I can feed my worm tea into the middle of the mound (I don't like the idea of too much worm tea evaporating) but I like to water them from the top as well as I'd read that the roots feed as much from the top layer of soil as they do from below. Worms end up in the mounds as well which really helps to keep the soil lovely and rich and soft.

When I mow the property, I just rake up the grass and wait for it to turn yellow and dry. Then I put piles of the dried grass over the mounds to keep them from drying out too much. I've read that green grass clippings leaches nitrogen from the soil.

I haven't had any trouble with bugs (or wallabies) yet, the few spiders living on the leaves seem to keep all of the bugs at bay and the wallabies just like lounging around in the shade of the trees.

Most of the trees that are around the four year mark are all budding / flowering at the moment which is really beautiful to see. They need more compost, worm tea and water at this point. If I don't give them enough the baby beans will suck all of the nutrient out of the leaves and branches and they start looking yellowed. When they are well fed, the leaves are a deep rainforest green and the young leaves are glossy.